Comparing the potential of commercial off-the-shelf and educational games video games for adult foreign language education: an experimental study

The goal of this paper is to explore the experiences evoked by playing a commercial and two digital language learning games. More particularly, it deals with the differences in the playing and learning experiences of adult foreign language learners ( N=62). While results of the experimental design suggest that the commercial game evokes better playing and learning experiences, these findings are partly neutralized by the attitude of the participants towards learning through video games and by being a gamer or not. This raises questions as to how video games should look to appeal to a public of learners that is not familiar with gaming in general and with digital game-based learning in specific.